What Tim Duncan Deserves, but Never Seems to Receive

We know what N.B.A. All-Star voting has typically been: a chance for fans to participate in the selection process for a showcase. No registration is required to prove that one knows Kobe Bryant from Krusty the Clown. It’s a popularity contest that cannot be taken seriously.

But that’s only for the starters. It is the coaches who choose the reserves. It is the coaches who talk about respecting the game, playing it right and recognizing substance over style. They understand, or should understand, the immeasurable contributions that win the games that count the most.

In the case of the Western Conference, what is the coaches’ excuse for discounting Tim Duncan?

Something is wrong when Duncan — a 14-time All-Star and 4-time champion, who missed a fifth ring by the thinnest of margins last spring — is not shown the same respect as other N.B.A. greats. When Duncan — at 37, still playing at a remarkably high level for a San Antonio team that remains stubbornly among the elite — is not rewarded for all that he has been and still is.

Many who know Duncan will shrug and cite his career-long reticence when it comes to promotional forums and platforms.

“I’m sure Tim will be happy to have the time off to be with his kids,” said R. C. Buford, the Spurs’ general manager, referring to All-Star weekend, Feb. 14-16, in New Orleans.

After a pause, he added: “I’m also sure his feelings are hurt a bit. He’s just never been one to show them.”

On the subject of Duncan’s unexpressed feelings, last season ended with a most public display of suffering over a Game 7 loss in the league finals in Miami, to the point where it was painful to watch. We saw him slap the floor with both hands after missing a late-game jump hook and a tap-in, and sink to his knees in apparent surrender after LeBron James’s title-clinching jumper.

We saw him on the bench, close to tears, unable to manufacture his familiar mask of indifference.

Doesn’t caring so deeply also count as helping to sell the game? Doesn’t playing and behaving selflessly and professionally for 17 years promote the league in a way that cannot be quantified in numbers like jersey sales?

Doesn’t seamlessly executing scores of high screen-and-rolls and setting the example in making the Spurs a basketball purist’s dream team speak to those who might otherwise be inclined to dismiss the N.B.A. as a rapacious dunk-and-pony show?

In a telephone interview, Buford agreed that the Duncan snub reflected a general attitude about the Spurs organization, which has long recognized the league and shoe company agenda for selling “Allen Iverson and hip-hop.”

He added: “For years people have told us, ‘You need to market yourselves more, open up your practices.’ But we always felt that if you handle yourself in a way that’s professional, do the things that are important, have good people, why do you have to be something you’re not?”

Buford offered the educated guess that Duncan, who received 492,657 fan votes, sixth among Western Conference frontcourt players, was more insulted by the coaches’ exclusion. He also acknowledged that the selection process was complicated in the talent-laden West, where Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin and Kevin Love were chosen by the fans as starters, and Dwight Howard, Dirk Nowitzki and LaMarcus Aldridge were added by the coaches.

In his first season with the rising Houston Rockets, Howard is averaging more points (18.3) and rebounds (12.3) than Duncan (15.1 points, 10 rebounds) but in five more minutes per game. Duncan averages more assists (2.9) and blocked shots (2.1) than Howard (1.7 assists, 1.8 blocks).

But beyond the numbers, a strong case can be made that Howard does not come close to Duncan as a proponent of what matters most — winning with team-first values.

“What nobody knows and nobody sees is the time he puts in, how he has always been the basis of what our program has become,” Buford said. “No matter how difficult it is for him to verbalize, we all see it, the angst of him missing the shot, how he beats himself up more than any great player I’ve ever seen.”

Even now, months later, the subject of not winning Game 6 in Miami after it seemed to be in hand casts an instantaneous pall over a conversation with a member of the Spurs. Buford did not deny the toll it took on Duncan. Just the same, he said, softy, “Tim was the first guy back in the gym, within days.”

In recent N.B.A. telecasts, Jeff Van Gundy has had fun contending that no player from a losing team should be an All-Star. That is extreme, and the fans, as long as they are voting, wouldn’t have it.

That said, the Spurs will step onto the Barclays Center floor in Brooklyn on Thursday night to play the Nets with roughly the same record as Miami, which landed three players on the albeit less-formidable Eastern Conference team.

But by choosing only Tony Parker from the Spurs, haven’t the coaches mimicked the marketers and shortchanged a team that for a generation has raised the maturity bar and brought adult appeal to a sport overrun with branding hype targeted to youth?

The coaches should have known better, but there’s a chance for Duncan to be added to the All-Star team by Commissioner Adam Silver as an injury replacement for Bryant or possibly Chris Paul.

Buford sighed at the mention of that.

“That’ll really tick him off,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B13 of the New York edition with the headline: Duncan Has It All, Except Respect. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe